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Post by Kaez on Dec 31, 2014 2:42:40 GMT -5
The epic journey is one of fiction writing’s classic tropes. Few stories captivate the minds and hearts of audiences like the heroic and adventurous tales of faraway explorers or courageous daredevils. Fantasy, sci-fi, and speculative fiction in general have incorporated epic journeys to pull the reader into their worlds and show off the depth and dimension of their settings. When a humble or headstrong character (equally unfamiliar with the foreign world of the setting as the reader) sees the many stops of the journey for the first time, it allows an opportunity for the reader to naturally and organically familiarize themselves with the world as well.
Restriction: First-person account of an epic journey.
Topic: DESERT SANDS
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Post by Deleted on Jan 8, 2015 7:59:48 GMT -5
The fabric whipped violently in the sandstorm, particles of the stuff tearing microscopic holes into the cloak as the wind ravaged it. I drew it in around myself, more from subconscious instinct than anything. I had no illusions that a simple cloak could shield me from this. I whispered a thankful prayer to Kalithon that my exosuit, however, did. Though even that prayer, like the pulling of my cloak, was empty reflex. A vestigial reaction from my training days.
Black and grey form-fitting armor clung to my frame, leading up to a mask on my face. I could see ahead of me the low, infrared glow that emanated from the mask's visor catching in the sand particles. They danced in the red light like lovers at a ball, twirling and spinning and fluttering off.
I was far from any of that right now, however. That bastard, I fumed. That double-crossing bastard. I cracked my knuckles and began fantasizing about ending Balthazaar.
Being an assassin by trade, I had no qualms with killing the man. However, I certainly hadn't intended to. I had another target. A contract. And Balthazaar had been nothing more than a means to an end. A cheap ride to this planet and a way to get close to my target without having to infiltrate any premises.
All that changed when he threw me off his damned ship. As we landed on this pisswater planet and began skimming along the surface, I was drugged. A rookie mistake. I let my guard down. I believed Balthazaar and his compatriots to be nothing but harmless eccentrics. I got sloppy. I am never sloppy. I awoke in a powered-down escape pod, with Balthazar's normally smiling face glowering at me balefully.
"You shall not harm the king," he murmured in his deep, dulcet tone before pressing the switch that sent the hatch careening down toward the earth.
At least he had the decency to give me a pod. It was his kindness, but it would also be his undoing. Had he simply thrown me out, I mightn't survived the fall. Still, it was a kindness, and I always keep my checkbook balanced. I'd kill him quick. I owed him that much.
I had little and less to salvage from the pod. Even my MAK90 was still aboard their ship. Sorry, my Mobile Arsenal Kit. Mine was the 90, top of the line model. Illegal in most sectors. I could kill pretty much anyone or anything at a number of distances with the load-out present in there.
Still, the absence of my MAK wouldn't stop me. Sure, there were some two-bit assassins around these parts who were about as good as tits on a haltha without their tech. But I'm a bit more old-school. I rubbed my hand across the forearm of my exosuit, knowing that my blades would eject from the compartment there when I needed them. They would be what spilled the blood of Balthazaar. Him, and his compatriots.
A flare gun also hung at my belt. I could blast that into someone's face. Messy, which isn't normally how I operate. But effective in a jam. In addition to that, there were rations in the pod. Standard issue protein and complex carbohydrate packets. I took them because it would be a rookie mistake not to, but I didn't plan on stopping until I found my target. The scent of prey has always been enough to keep me moving longer than the average man. Part of it is the genetic modifying that I had done, but part of it I think was more primal than that. The human species spanned the galaxy, but all agreed that we had once emerged from the treetops as carnivorous hunters. My jungle-brain still thundered a tribal drumbeat when I felt a kill close.
And this kill was close. The orbit of this planet was riddled with space-junk. Satellites and ships and space stations spun with it. On Balthazaar's ship, I had decrypted some star-charts that told me that once every four-hundred orbits around the sun, a gigantic, abandoned, primitive space station would be stuck in a synchronous orbit with the planet for a fortnight. The bones from a long-dead civilization that had once conquered this backwater. And this year was the four-hundredth. According to Balthazaar and his men, my target, this rebel "king", would be camped out beneath that defunct space station with his retainers.
The winds picked up again, and I braced myself. I felt my feet begin to lift from the dunes. Grinning at the direction they blew, I smiled. Pressing the button on my suit's belt, I jumped into the air. The wings snapped open, running from my wrists to my waist, and I began to glide in the air, inside the sand-squalls, hovering gracefully toward my destination.
I must have glided like a squirrel for thirty minutes before the sandstorm subsided. As I drifted down towards the ground, dunes and sand gave way to a temperate grassland. The air was warm and balmy on my face as my visor folded itself back into the two nodes on the side of my mask, and I pulled the mask down around my neck to reveal my face. I grinned despite myself at how beautiful this part of the planet was. I ran my gloved hands through my hair, examining my cloak. It looked moth-eaten now, or sand-eaten, but it still was serviceable. I flicked my wrist and my blade emerged from the forearm of my exosuit. "I am coming, Balthazaar. For you, and this false 'king.'" Another flick of the wrist and the blade returned to its socket.
With no wind and no ship, I began to walk.
It had been back on the planet Selucia where I met Balthazaar, but my contract went back to Mo'ar Prime. The Mo'arn Empire, of course, being the largest and most powerful political body in this sector, and Mo'ar Prime being the designation of their home planet. The Mo'ar were worse than some in terms of being solar overlords, but if I had to be honest, though I am not a political theorist, my impression was they were better than most. So long as the taxes came in and their Pantokrator was acknowledged, they were content to leave well enough alone, which was more than could be said for the fascistic nations and crackpot theocracies that had conquered these parts before it. This planet, however, had been notorious for tax avoidance and rebellion, even under the most gentle of yokes. And now, it was brewing again, and there were whispers of a new "king" arising. Those whispers are what drew the Pantokrator's governor to contact me. And who could blame him? I am Forss Trueman, the greatest bounty hunter this side of Nath Saharn.
I had taken the payment with pleasure from the Mo'ar, and then headed off-world to begin my search. After a month of searching on this planet, I left it to find more information. And it was there, on Selucia, where I found Balthazaar and his men. They were Commerce-Lords from the mysterious Zax Conglomerate, and for some reason, even they searched for this rebel king on this backwater planet. I joined with them, saying that I was looking for the king as well. Balthazaar and his men were overjoyed at this, for reasons I could not surmise and did not care about, but they were agreeable enough, and brought me aboard.
And then you know the rest. As soon as we made landfall, I was cast out, with nothing but my feet, my wits, and my exosuit. It was all I really needed.
Dusk hung pregnant over this side of the world, the sun fighting not to recede as I came upon my first real landmark since arrival. I wish I could tell you I saw all sorts of amazing things, but I do not call this planet a backwater lightly. Still, I found it. An ancient ship was plunged into the dirt like a dirk, slowly being overcome by nature. I heard cannives howling within it, as if they'd transformed the hull of that hulking, ancient vessel from a cave for men into a cave for wild dogs. I walked warily around the ship, wondering who it had belonged to. Which empire had crafted it, and for what purpose? The people on this world were not a space-faring people, instead living highly primitive lives. Most were subsistence farmers or ranchers. Many and more were fishermen, plying the great lakes and waters on this world for a living. They were meek and meagre, until a foreign yoke came over them. Then they were like vipers.
This king would only make that worse.
Thirty three million credits to eliminate this false king. It was too easy.
Some time after passing the ancient behemoth ship, I found them. A group of men, herding arkars on the cool plains. The animals bleated, the bells on their necks ringing a pastoral cacophony as their tiny legs attempted to thunder across the fields. I approached the men, but they stared at me warily. One brandished a shock-staff at me, and I could not help but chuckle. The weapon must have been two-hundred years old. It was certainly not a model I had ever seen, except at backwater flea markets. Still, he held it at me like it would stop me.
I approached him calmly, and his brethren glanced nervously at each other.
"Put your weapon down, man. I am not some cannive come to take your sheep. I only wish to speak with you a moment." My cloak billowed in the wind behind me as a cool, fall breeze brought the sent of arkar to my nose.
He lowered his weapon, slightly but not completely, and peered at me. "We do not talk to strangers overmuch. Speak your piece and then go."
I sighed. "I am marooned here, my friends. I only ask if you could get me to the nearest metropolis so I could-"
One of the herdsman began to laugh. "No metropolis here, offworlder. No city for many, many klicks." He began to turn and go back to his work, and his companions made to follow.
"Wait," I called out to them. "Where are you going?"
He pointed up at the sky, at the dead space station. "We follow this."
I nodded solemnly. "As do I. May I walk with you?"
They peered at each other silently. Then, the one with the antique stun-staff nodded. "Stay away from our animals. In fact, keep your distance from us. But aye, you may walk with us."
"Thank you."
My new-found travel companions did not speak much. Still, from eavesdropping and scrounging from conversation I learned that they had no idea what they would find beneath the dead space station. They had not seen it before, naturally, and were merely curious to get "closer" to it. They seemed to think it was some sort of good omen, that perhaps it would lead them to a good pasture for their animals or perhaps a mysterious fountain of youth. They spoke hurriedly in their own foreign, dying language, leaving me to only listen and guess. Still, I knew enough of their tongue to pick up the major details.
The fact that they were unaware of the king's presence beneath the dead station worked to my advantage. Their suspicion of me died off as we got closer and closer to our destination, their trepidation of me displaced by excitement of what wonders might lie beneath the man-made star.
We soon came to a small village. By now, the dead station loomed massively above us, so close was its orbit to the planet. I imagined, to these primitives, that it looked as if some ancient god held the station on a string, dangling it above the world, threatening to smite them with space-frozen titanium. Hell, even to my vestigial animal brain, the station seemed to be a threat, and I felt the hairs on my neck stand up as we entered the village and stood under it. My scientific mind knew that there was no way it would ever fall. But the way that it teetered on a point over the village was understandably visually upsetting.
One of the herdsmen stayed back with the animals, as me and the other eleven entered the village. If it had a name, I did not know it and nor did the shepherds tell me. I thanked them for their help, and told them I would go on my own way now. They only nodded.
As I wandered off into the moderate-sized village, I glanced around. And then, finally, I saw it. A grin stretched across my face, and I clenched and unclenched my left fist, the exosuit gloves creaking slightly as I made the motion. There, before me, was Balthazaar's ship.
Two of his guards stood at the back of it, the hull was wide open. Golden light poured out of the hull, but there was no sound from within. I pulled my exosuit's mask over my head, and pressed the release on the nodes. The sound of metal and polymer unfolding was faint as the visor, a rectangular half-mask with a bright red, horizontal bar for vision spread over my eyes. I pulled the hood of my cloak over my head, flicked my wrists so that my blades emerged, and began to pace around the ship, starting from the bow. I moved from the bow along the starboard side, and hugged the starboard-stern corner. One of Balthazaar's guardsmen was mere feet from me.
I lunged, my left hand blade hugging his neck and then skating across it like a Kanarian figure skater. A spritz of blood gushed into the air like mist as other guard turned. Too slow. My leg shot up and kicked his rifle aside as my right hand blade shot forward, through his throat. His legs buckled, but his body hung there on my short-blade. I shoved him off of it, and he crumpled into the dirt. Glancing around to make sure there were no witnesses, I grabbed each of them men and dragged them up the ramp, into the hull.
Balthazaar and his company of Commerce-Lords had broughten significant cargo with them. Much and more of it was still here, but I saw that they had removed some of it. For what end? To show patronage to the usurper king?
I exited the hull once more, but made a mental note to use Balthazaar's ship as my get away. I could collect the second half of my payment for the Mo'ar when I killed the usurper, and unload Balthazaar's cargo to make double that again. I chuckled. Too easy.
The ship itself was parked in the street. Here in this ancient village of wood and stone, it looked almost comical. One of the sleekest, fastest ships of the most powerful political entities for many sectors was parked as if it were nothing more than a horse-drawn wagon.
Yet, it was parked outside of a small tavern. I knew in there I would find my target. Where else?
I entered, and the din was roaring. Men gathered in the common area, and the fermented juice of grapes and the fermented milk of arkar poured liberally. The cajoled and joked and sang and laugh. A few women were present, fluttering about, pouring libations, and a few kids ran underfoot, but mostly it was men gathered. I glanced around, using the infrared vision on my visor to peer upstairs and in the back rooms. One couple was engaged in coitus in one room, another drank and sat on their bed as if in conversation. And the other rooms were empty, presumably rented by the crowd assembled in the common area. Unless Balthazaar and the usurper were making love upstairs, they weren't here. I removed my visor and mask and made sure, once more, that the men were not among the revelers. Again, only revelers, though this time I noticed a few Mo'arn soldiers, decorated in their traditional crimson cloaks, mingling with the crowd. Ascertaining that Balthazaar and the usurper weren't among the crowd, I approached the barkeep.
"Did three Commerce-Lords come here?" I asked.
He glared at me. "What kind of dumb question is that? Of course they did. Or are you thinking that is my ship parked out front?"
I returned his glare eleven-fold. "Don't be smart with me. Where are they? I know they came to see the king."
The barkeep raised a single eyebrow, and then began to laugh heartily. His large belly jiggled beneath his brown apron as his body tremored with laughter. "You hear that, boys? The offworlder is here to see a king!"
Stopping to listen, the crowd drank the message for a half-second, and then the room itself erupted with laughter. One drinker wiped away a tear from his eyes, another only pinched the bridge of his nose as his body shook with laughter. I glanced around, grinding my teeth behind my lips.
My hand shot forward like a serpent across the bar, and affixed itself across the man's throat. "Do not laugh at me. Don't ever laugh at me." Behind me, I could hear the Mo'arn soldiers draw their blade. Even though I was working for at least their overlord's overlord's overlord's overlord, they would have no way of knowing that I was on their side. I released the barkeep.
"My apologies, sir," he muttered, coughing and hacking. "It is just that... well, this world has not seen a king in almost a thousand years.. And if we did have one, he probably wouldn't come here. You'd find him in the Grand City. Again, if we had one. I'm sorry, you're out of luck off-worlder."
That couldn't be right. "Well, where is Balthazaar then? The Commerce-Lord."
"That nutjob? Around back. Outside. Don't know why he and his men wanted to see them though..."
I ignored him as he began to ramble on, my steps ignited with purpose. I drew my blades from within my forearms, and began to march briskly out the front door, pivoting as I turned the corner. Out back, I saw a cave, and the stench of horses and herd animals and pigs could be smelled from within. Outside, I saw him. Manikai. One of the Commerce-Lords that traveled with Balthazaar. He was discussing with a young, handsome man from this world. The king? I had to be sure. But Manikai was expendable. I hurled my shortblade, and it spun once in the air with a dull whir before plunging into Manikai's chest. The young man turned and yelled, drawing a small dagger from his belt.
I readied my blade, and made to face him. He surged forward at me, screaming about protecting his family. I chuckled, and lazily batted the dagger aside with my blade, before jumping up and driving my boot into his chest. The young man fell to the dirt, his knife skittering away from him. I kicked it even further and then mounted on top of him. "Are you the king? Are you the usurper king? Tell me! Tell me, and I will make your death quick." I seethed, spittle flying from my mouth and spraying his face. He headbutted me, but it only served to make me angrier and to draw blood from his own skull.
"The Almighty as my witness, you will not harm them," he growled, but all the fight was gone from his voice.
Suddenly, the herdsmen from before emerged from within the cave. The leader brandished his stun-baton, and the others held staves and boards, and one even held a sharp rock. What sorcery did this king posess to engender such loyalty.
"Get off from him," the chief herdsmen commanded. "Or we shall make you." The youngest shepherd glanced at Manikai's corpse on the ground, and pissed himself.
I punched the handsome young man in the face, and felt his nose break beneath my fist. I stood up from him, and spun my sword in a half-dozen circles within the span of a couple of seconds. "Are you so foolish so as to contend with me? The Commerce-Lords interfered with my purpose, and now shall pay. You need not pay the same price they are about to. I come only for the king. No one else has to die."
The chief herdsmen stepped forward. "If the king must die, I would die by his side."
"Very well." I rushed forward, ready to strike the man down. He stood, his pathetic weapon clenched in his shaking, gnarled hands. My mind instantly flooded with possible strike points. He was barely even guarding himself, as if he was some sort of amateur...
"ENOUGH!" came a deep voice, and suddenly I was thrown back into the dirt, skidding a good seven feet before coming to a stop. Balthazaar stood at the mouth of the cave, glaring at me formidably. An audioblaster was in his hand, the wide barrel held out at me. My bones shook from the soundwave, and I made to get onto my feet.
I reached for my blade, only to see the man with the now-broken nose scramble over to it, grabbing it and holding it. He held it with both hands, and glared at me as he brandished the blade toward me. Another Commerce-Lord, the silent one whose name I never learned, stepped out of the cave with a lethal blaster aimed at me. I spit in the dirt, swearing. Beaten by fat merchants and inbred hicks. Had I really fallen so low?
Balthazaar stepped forward, his charcoal skin looked smooth in the moonlight despite his advanced age. His great, white beard seemed to glow, and he looked to me as if he were mantling some ancient storm deity. "You want to see the king, Forss Trueman? Very well. Come. Come, and kneel." The two largest herdsmen grabbed me by an arm each, and the silent Commerce-Lord pressed his blaster into my back. The young man with the broken nose still held my blade, and I could tell it was highly unlikely I'd ever hold it again.
I swallowed nervously as I was lead into the cave. Once inside, I knew the king would mete and dole out his justice. The ferocity with which his retainers defended him had inspired and frightened me, and it seemed as though I felt a great, enormous guilt overshadow me the deeper I entered into that cave.
The scent of animals became stronger and stronger, until finally the cave expanded. A stable had been built inside of the rock formation, and the low din of farm animals making the noises animals make could be heard. The stench was nauseating to one such as myself. An assassin by trade, of course, I was not squeamish. But I was often hired to kill high priority political targets, or by jealous lovers to kill consorts. I had never smelled anything like this.
But more terrible, and far more sweet, were the king's cries. As he screamed out into the cave, the lights from the torches themselves seem to dance at his command. He cried in his mother's arms until she bared a breast. The babe took her nipple into his mouth and began to suckle contentedly. The man with the broken nose paced over to them, and knelt there with them, stroking the king's head. The mother looked up at him with concern, touching the shattered nose gingerly with the fingers on her free hand. The hatred I had seen in the broken-nose man's eyes for me was replaced with the resplendent love of a father as he knelt there, in the flickering light of the cave, with bride and child.
A child. A babe.
I fell to one knee, weeping and hanging my head in shame.
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Post by JMDavis ((Silver)) on Jan 8, 2015 21:59:13 GMT -5
The ramp lowered on a world of violet sands. The sky was hazed in striated colours of pinks, golds, and reds. The ground beneath the ramp cracked – having turned to glass from the heat of engines. Two dozen boots rang against the plastiron of the ramp before crunching into the beautiful glass and grit beneath the gunship. Our first steps on this alien world – the first steps of any known human – were made with the intent of reavers.
“Amethyst,” the voice was hazed, filled with static. A small icon let me know it was Nuan speaking. I turned, looking at her as she knelt down with her hand pressed to the grit of the world. “This entire world… the sand is crushed amethyst,” she rose – a soft glow from a plastiron and fiber-bundle glove emanating from the palm and causing the crystalline sand to shimmer.
“Well, at least this venture won’t be a complete loss either way,” that was Lord An – even without the icon he was distinguishable – the only one wearing voluminous red and gold robes over his body armour. He jabbed a blackened titanium cane into the grit, rolling the butt of it around for a moment before pulling it free, “Enough here to present to the priests of Leng aboard the Talon and purchase stations for each of you.” His head turned toward me, and I could hear the smile in his voice, “Though I’m not sure what station there is to achieve above Talon Dancer.”
There were a few chuckles over the comms, a smile spreading across my face for the man I had come to think of as a father. “I could always see about the Shuang Bei Xue Ke, be both a Talon Dancer and a Zhu Ji Xie,” Lord An laughed aloud over the comms, hobbling over toward me and laying a hand on my forearm. I reached over, grasping his hand in mine and giving it a small squeeze.
There was some mockery and jeers over the comms, but his voice cut through them all – coming over a private channel. “The Lords Mechanica would be more than accepting to have you in their ranks, my boy,” Lord An’s voice was kindly and soft – I wished the visor screens did not block our sight. I just bowed my head, only slightly, in response.
Lord An gave my arm another squeeze before releasing me, his voice once more speaking over the squad comms, “Now – the scans from the Talon show us that there are rich resources beneath the surface of this world. Our cutter has landed on a spot described as being the wellspring to these hidden riches – and we have the task of excavating. So, Nuan – you, Zhen and Song will set-up the delvers under my supervision and begin work. Yat-sen – I want you, Qiang, Shu, and Ju-long to patrol the south and west of our site. Kong – “ I came to attention as Lord An looked to me, “I want you, Feng, Ai and Bao to patrol the north and east of our site.
“While surface scans have indicated no life, we have no way of knowing what might lie beneath the world. If our equipment disturbs anything, I want us to be prepared for the worst,” he paused, looking to each of the flat – t-shaped visors that made up our faces, “May the Voidhawk watch over us.”
“And may he guide our strikes,” the eleven of us chorused in unison – finishing the blessing of Leng.
Another slight nod of his head, “Well then – get to work.”
That was the dismissal for us – soldiers moving to hold the cardinal points, engineers working to strip the underworld clean. It was tedious and dull; hours spent pacing back and forth from east to north with nothing but the occasional – far off – storm to bring any change. Other than that there was nothing – not even the sky seemed to change, though Lord An did report that if we looked above we could see the light-cluster from the bottom of the Talon of Leng.
Eventually we fell into a different rhythm – some of us resting while others patrolled, reports filtering to our HUDs of complications in getting through the worst of the sands. I was trading off, moving to take my rest – a small nod to Ai who was swapping with me. I sat down next to Feng, resting the point of the scabbard of my dao blade in the sand – staring at the twilit sky. “Kinda romantic, isn’t it?” Feng asked over a private channel, turning his head toward me.
I smiled a bit, looking back at him, “Is the Arbiter from Pan Jue Shi getting sappy with the gutter rat from Shui Xi?”
Feng laughed lightly and shrugged, “Well, I rarely have any other time to get anything with the Talon Dancer from Shui Xi – I think I’ll have even fewer chances if he actually ends up as a Dual-Disciple.” It was said lightly with just an edge of hurt in it.
My smile slowly fell and I looked down at the shifting sands beneath my feet, “Feng – the number of Dual-Disciples is already rare. Lord An says I have the capability of being both a Talon Dancer and a Zhu Ji Xie… I-“
An echoing crash sounded from behind, a scream over the comms. Both teams reached the dig at the same time, watching as Lord An’s arm slowly retracted – Nuan hanging from his hand, erratic breathing filling the comms. Gently, he set the panicked engineer on the stable ground around the excavation. Icons clicked across the HUD – An and Nuan – but it was kept to a private channel. “Nuan’s fine,” the sonorous voice of Lord An echoed in everyone’s ear, “A bit scared – and who wouldn’t be after the ground opened in such a way?”
There were affirmation clicks from all of us as we stepped toward the edge of the hole and looked down. Jungles crowded sprawling structures and… it was a city. It took a few moments, the alien geometry bringing nothing but pain to the eyes at first, but it was mostly definitely a city. “By Leng,” I breathed softly, staring down at tree-choked avenues and vine-strewn buildings. Light hazed through the structures, each pulse bringing a pounding ache to the eyes that the visors could do nothing for.
“The scans,” Lord An murmured, trailing away before beginning to laugh lightly. Helmets turned toward him, “We thought maybe a pocket with some growth, a thin stream… but this…” he shook his head and stood, “Get the other delvers, widen this hole – we’ll take the guncutter down to investigate and send a signal up to the Talon. If this is as extensive as the surface… we’ll have enough resources to last every deck well into the next bicentennial!”
“We can’t be sure what’s down there,” I cautioned. There was lore, some would say myths, dating back to the Red World of the Battle God with its slumbering race who lurked beneath the crimson sands. I swallowed a bit at the accounts, it was a time before the Voidgods and their blessings… it was a dark time for war.
Lord An glanced to me, I could feel the confusion emanating from him but he gave a slight nod of his head. “You’re right, of course, Kong… but a find like this could grant us more material wealth than just water and flora. Mineral wealth down there could be something we haven’t been able to reave in ages.” His voice switched to a private channel, “Think about what the Lords Mechanica can do with such abundance… and how they will thank the ones responsible.”
I hesitated – Lord An had full command of this mission, and that he was asking me showed… something. I wasn’t sure. I almost thought it insecurity, but the old man had been confident about every decree I’d ever heard him lay down. I closed my eyes and let out a soft breath, “Then we’ll go slow in widening it, my Lord.”
Lord An nodded slightly, and work began once more – the hole slowly widening until it would easily accommodate the cutter. We climbed aboard the ship once more, Yat-sen and Ju-long taking their spot in the pilot seats as everyone else strapped in and descended into the cool, tropical underworld beneath the harsh desert.
It was a descent into welcoming darkness, and despite the alien city with its throbbing light all of us were much more comfortable in the embrace of the holy dark. Within the synthetic atmosphere of the cutter we were able to remove our helms; I breathed a heavy sigh of relief – running fingers through sweat-soaked short black hair. I looked over toward Feng, his own helmet gone allowing his much longer black hair to spill out, sticking to his face and armour. He smiled over at me, tying his hair up into a severe topknot. I returned the smile before looking away and around the compartment.
Shu was strapped down onto the ground, a work screen set up – just high enough to keep pieces from rolling everywhere – as she meticulously cleaned her massive rotary cannon and whispered soft prayers to Leng, her short hair sheened with sacred oils. Qiang was cataloguing his supplies for the twenty-seventh time since they boarded the cutter; his right eye twitching slightly as nervous sweat ran down from the crown of his glistening bald pate into his eyes.
Lord An was the only other present on this level of the cutter – though even without his helmet he still looked inhuman. His face was sculpted palladium and gold – like the deathmasks of ancient kings of Mundo Cuna, but this one was animated. His eyes were carved sapphires which stared out into a viewport; his long hair and beard were carefully shaped lengths of iron. Perhaps sensing my notice, Lord An turned to face me and smiled – the movement of artificial muscles both amazing and just slightly disturbing. All the same, I returned the smile and gave a slight nod of my head to him.
“Scans are detecting atmosphere in tolerable levels for humans, I’d still recommend we remain completely suited u- oh by Leng!” Yat-sen’s voice became a cry of shock, the cutter jeering sharply to the right and left – knocking around delicate pieces and threatening to throw us around if it weren’t for the straps. There was a sharp jolt, a shrieking of tortured metal and two more screams suddenly cut off before silence.
I unstrapped and threw myself down the passage to the cockpit of the cutter, focusing my thoughts and increasing my strength to rip the door free from its hinges. Ju-long was just gone – a bloody smear on the shattered glass of the cockpit the only sign he had been. Yat-sen was slumped in his seat with a length of glass as long as my forearm jammed through his chest. I grimaced, stumbling out of the cockpit with a shake of my head.
“Don’t worry, Ai, don’t worry. We’ll be right there just – what? No, that’s – Ai, calm down. Ai –“ Lord An cringed away as a loud scream echoed over the comms built into his ear before there was silence again. Lord An looked toward me, “Ai… she was crying about creatures… she couldn’t shoot them.”
I frowned, turning at the sound of boots on the metal decking to see Feng running from the passage down to the lower deck. “The whole compartment is shorn off – if anyone survived they could have landed anywhere in this desert,” Feng reported, shaking his head as I had done earlier.
“Desert? But we’re in a jungle,” I glanced out of a viewport and found how hollow my words were. The trees still existed, but only at the edge of a vast desert, as seemingly as endless as the one above. I blinked a few times, at first not trusting my eyes before remembering that that doubted the Gift of Leng. With a shaking breath I turned from the unusual vista, “Well – we sent word to the Talon, more ships will be arriving by tonight. We’ll retreat to the city and hope those in the lower deck survived and did the same.”
There were nods of agreement as everyone got to work arming and armouring themselves, Feng and I were the first out – only needing to put our helmets into place – and used that to walk a perimeter around the cutter. Blood glittered in dark sand leading away from the shatter cupola where Ai had sat as gunner. The other cupola was shorn away along with the wing it had been attached to – Bao was as good as dead. Returning to the forced open ramp saw Lord An, Qiang and Shu all gathered and waiting – Shu with her tri-gun rotary cannon fully assembled, Qiang with a matte black assault rifle, and Lord An with a lean and deadly jiang blade.
Once set we were off, Feng was at point with his guan dao held at the ready – thumb hovering near the activation stud. Lord An was just behind him, jiang held in a similar way to Feng’s polearm. Next was Qiang who held his rifle loose but close for a shot from the hip. Shu was next, panning her cannon back and forth – itching to pull the trigger and unleash hell. I followed at the rear, dao still in its sheathe but ready to be drawn when needed.
Nothing was sighted as we trekked through the frozen sands and into the odd humidity of the jungle. Mist was thick on the ground, alien trees spread their boughs to darken the land even further. Silence reigned.
That was the most unnerving thing to me – the quiet. I had trekked through the various decks of the Talon – and at the middle deck where the tribal Yuan Ren held sway the jungles were always alive. Birdsong, predatory roars, anything and everything. Here was only oppressive silence – even the growl of our powered armour was quieted down to a low purr when it normally roared their presence to the heavens.
It was unsettling – even more so for the brief flashes still seen through the trees from the buildings beyond. I could feel a growing tension in almost all of us – only Lord An seemed immune to the effect of the lights and the constant dull wamb that we could feel within our bones. I didn’t realize it until the third such light that my jaw had clenched, I forced myself to relax and a throbbing ache from the release of pressure joined the wamb.
I released an exasperated breath, it felt like we’d been walking for hours and had grown no closer to the city. I was about to bring the issue up when something made me freeze. A prickling along the back of my neck that had me turn slowly in place. Clad in white-washed rags with a vacant, black hole where a face should be was… something, standing three meters from me. It seemed like a distorted hologhost at the Walk of Heroes. It’s body hazed now and then with blurts of static. I swallowed, it was wrong, fundamentally the thing was wrong. “Behind us,” I subvocalised over the comms.
“All around us,” responded Lord An. A quick glance confirming he was right. The same creature behind us now surrounded as – nearly twenty of the things all standing eerily still.
There was a screech, akin to feedback, and the things were another meter closer to us. Another screech and their arms were in the same position as the blademasters of the Chevalier. Another screech and they were a meter from us – ghostly longswords held in ghostly hands. I drew my dao, activating it at the last moment to bathe the blade in a sheen of bruised-purple energy. Lord An and Feng did the same with their jiang and guan dao while Qiang and Shu moved back to back – Shu’s barrels slowly rotating as she ran them through a dry run before firing.
There was another screech and they materialized close enough to touch. The roar of the rotary cannon drowned out everything, I had no idea how my companions fared as three of the creatures joined the first – blades fell in unison and were parried with the glowing edge of my dao. When the ghostly blades didn’t slice in two I was only a bit dismayed, but I drove that from my thoughts. I focused and felt blood jump through my veins faster, oxygenating itself more easily. My muscles and bones shifted ever so slightly, and I was driving forward. My blade a blur of purple that deflected blades and slashed at distorted rags.
One vanished in the feedback screech, followed by the second and third until I was only facing one. It bled milky ooze which dissipated into mist. It still held its sword in an iron grip. We struck at the same time – my dao slicing in under its guard to carve an arm free as its sword swung down and through my armour. I gasped, a shock of cold running the length of my arm. The gasp turned to a wordless roar, the sound distorted by the helmet into something between the bestial and demonic. I spun, swinging my blade around and decapitating the ghost-thing, watching its body shriek into nothingness.
I closed my eyes, focusing where the blade had struck and feeling nothing: no damage, no blood… just a sense of cold as deep as that in the Void. I blocked it from my mind, turning to find the rest of the ghost-things dealt with in similar ways. The only ones no worse for the wear being Qiang, Shu and Feng, though Feng was breathing just a bit heavily. Lord An was shuddering, leaning heavily on his cane – frost coated parts of his armour where blades had struck. But to affect his heavily modified body in such a way sent a chill down my spine.
I took two steps forward, boots scattering spent shell casings from the rotary cannon and noticed that we had arrived at the edge of the city. “When…” I began but just shook my head, walking over to Lord An and kneeling down, “How are you? Anything damaged?” I asked, using external speakers now instead of the internal comms – we needed sounds.
He laughed, “Just a bit of frost-caked systems, I think. Once we get moving they’ll warm-up again.” He patted my shoulder reassuringly. I just nodded and rose – the five of us setting out again and walking into the city proper… and feeling small. The smallest of buildings was twenty stories tall, while the tallest – hovering off the ground – was five times that size. We walked down deserted streets, the pulses of light more frequent as they traveled through each building, and the wamb growing to be a much more powerful constant.
“I hate this,” Shu muttered, panning the rotary cannon around and dry gunning it every now and then. “Whatever’s causing those lights and that… feeling, needs to stop. Now.”
“Calm down, Shu,” Qiang said softly – the big man was also on edge but was covering it better than Shu. His gaze darted around at every shadow and his gun was held a bit tighter.
“Quiet, both of you, we need to listen for –“ gunshots and screams cut Feng off. Immediately we set off at a run, heading for the shouts of fear and the barrage of fire. The five of them came around the corner, more of the ghostly images surrounding four armoured individuals. All four standing in a ring and firing at the ghosts. Feng and I cursed as one, we recognized the armour and immediately began running to rescue our four comrades.
Ghosts blocked their path, slashing and driving myself and Feng back. “Move!” We dived aside as the rotary cannon loosed its roar, shredding the ghosts in front of us and carving apart the floor, and a side of the building, behind the specters. But more than that, it caused something else to screech. A creature with a glossy purple carapace fell from the building, spewing green ichor into the air. Ghosts faded in a great swathe as the creature died.
The sight brought us up short – and none of us reacted fast enough to save our friends. Four more of the creatures seemed to materialize from thin air. I could only watch them grapple Bao, Nuan, Zhen and Song and vanish the same way they’d appeared. “… The fuck were those?” Shu asked, unnecessarily seeing as none of us had any idea.
Lord An Shuffled past, keeping an eye out for more of the things as he wandered to the corpse – kneeling next to it and examining it. I joined him after another sweep, looking over his shoulder at the thing. It had a glossy purple carapace, only a shade darker than the amethyst buildings surrounding us. It had three eyes – one blown out from the rotary cannon, the other two a dull crimson. No mouth could be seen on the thing, just a curled proboscis with a sharp point at the end. Long, hooked talons were limp at its sides. There was a melding of simian body structure, insectoid armouring and feeding, and avian weaponry. “Yao,” Lord An murmured.
“Yao? But… here?” I asked, kneeling beside him and placing a hand on the creature. My mind was filled with horrible images – screaming faces, bloody claws, unendurable pain. I screamed, flinging myself away from the thing and curling into a ball – sobbing and whimpering as the images slowly faded. Strong hands gripped my shoulders, slowly moving me into a seated position. I shuddered, eyes opening and looking up – Feng’s visor had cleared enough for me to see into his eyes. I offered a small smile, and a slight nod of the head and he aided me in standing the rest of the way.
“What the hell happened to you?” Feng asked, keeping me steady with an arm beneath the shoulder nearest him and a hand supporting me on the opposite side.
I shook my head, still in pain, “I… I’m not sure. I laid a hand on the creature and then –“ ghosts of the images flashed through my mind and I drew in a sharp breath, focusing my Gift to drive them out.
“It is the curse of the yao. Everything they’ve touched – everything they’ve done and everyone they’ve killed – lingers on them eternally. Laying a hand on one can cause even one without the Gift to feel the eternal wrongness of the creatures. But you, Kong… your touch will let you experience such sensations as if you committed them yourself,” Lord An rose, dusting himself off. “Now we know why this land is lost and forgotten – the yao.”
I shuddered again – this time at the implications of the words. Yao – demons. They were supposed to be a myth. Lightly pushing away from Feng I gave a nod of my head, “Right… then we find the hole and stay there to wait.” Nods of agreement followed this proclamation – looking to the sky we edged along until we stopped beneath the hole to the world above. A blinking time read out on my HUD let me know there was still an hour until more cutters would arrive to escort the reave teams. With nothing left to do, we set up in case more yao decided to show themselves and waited.
We didn’t have long to wait.
Ghostly images came shrieking toward us – swords gripped in their hands as they distorted across the distance toward us. Shu opened up with her rotary cannon, punching through dozens of the ghosts as they came forward. Six vanished – and the scream of a yao went up into the air. Qiang fired – stitching the ghosts, following the same method as Shu. Feng and I held the flanks, void weapons activated – Lord An hugged tight to us with his back to Shu and Qiang. “Ignore the ghosts!” Lord An called out, “They are slaved to the will of the yao but can only harm us if we believe they can.”
It seemed ludicrous, but we listened to his words and the guns of Shu and Qiang fell silent. The ghostly line crashed into us and dissipated into mist. Bellows arose from the city, and the yao made their appearance. Loping forward like the appas of Mundo Cuna, they launched themselves through the air – winking out of existence only to reappear amongst us. Feng and I launched into our attack – our blades passing right through the creatures without inflicting any harm.
Their return strikes, however, almost cleaved us open – exposing skin to the moist atmosphere with every swipe we didn’t dodge. Qiang covered Shu, firing and managing to occasionally hurt one of the yao, sending them back until the rotary cannon roared once more. Two yao were eviscerated into wet meat. Lord An dueled with one of the creatures, just as with us he was unable to inflict any harm – though the yao was in the same spot, unable to pierce the armoured body of one of the Zhu Ji Xie.
Annoyed that anything could stand against me for any length of time I focused my Gift, my muscles burning hot and my blood pumping faster. My blade lashed around, cleaving through one of the yao. The creature didn’t even have time to scream as it’s body dissolved into molecular nothingness, soon devoured by my dao’s energy field. With my speed and senses enhanced into overdrive I was able to see why my strikes had not caused damage earlier – the blades of Feng and Lord An passed through segments of the yao turned translucent and ghostly before solidifying.
I leapt to join them, clearing two from Feng and the one from Lord An. The rest retreated – three more dying from the guns of Shu and Qiang. There were still calls from the shadows of the city, the yao were either gathering again or determining we weren’t worth the effort. We rebuffed two more assaults befote the additional cutters arrived. We warned them about the yao and allowed ourselves rest and resupply before heading back out to monitor procedures. Trees, streams and crystal were harvested. Being loaded on both cutters and bulky, wallowing supply transports. The yao tried to attack us once or twice more but were driven off for good after the last engagement left half of their number dead.
Stripped of its jungle and with parts of the building removed, much of the majesty was removed. We left without exploring further, the feeling of the lights causing too much discomfort for us to remain. Once more aboard the Talon of Leng, looking down on a demonic world I stood by one of the large viewports and watched as the swarming fleet of cruisers, battleships, frigates and destroyers turned their port broadside toward the world below. In a storm of fire the desert world was lit by flame: laser, plasma, and macro-cannon shells scorched the world into glass. Then the main gun of the Talon fired.
I watched a miniature sun be born in the darkness and then die into the darkness of the Void.
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Post by Kaez on Jan 11, 2015 20:57:27 GMT -5
JordoomStill, it was a kindness, and I always keep my checkbook balanced. I'd kill him quick. I owed him that much. Alright, you've sold me on our protagonist. He's cool and I want to hear his story. This isn't the most eloquent sentence in the history of the world, but I'm so relieved to hear it. My most common critique of stories this competition has been: spice it up! Use some flavorful descriptions! Even a -pinch- of purple, please. And that's not an issue here. Huzzah! Look at this worldbuilding. Sure, you may have told me more than you showed me, but there's a whole setting with history and complexity underlying this story and I can see that and want to know more about it -- so fuck how you did it, you did it and it works. Cool. This is quality dialogue. It gives me a feel for their characters with very few words. Man, I wish you said just a few more words about this. I -almost- can picture it, and it seems like such a cool mental image. I'd have loved just a few more details to really sell this visual. Perfect. An adjective that originates in the setting itself? What more could I want? Another super cool mental image. Took me a moment to figure out how the protagonist was skidding on the ground, but you brought the explanation in just in time. Almost more satisfying than explaining it outright, honestly. So. Uh. -Again-, nicely done. I've got really mixed feelings about this ending here. I think part of my uncertainty is in how much I had definitive and positive feelings about everything -until- the ending, which makes me a little frustrated. The concept of the king being a baby is really cool. Especially since I know where you're going with this whole thing and the metaphor and parallels involved. I think that works. But the protagonist really doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd suddenly be shameful and weeping. The child seems supernatural, and if that's the case, you needed to make that clearer and the supernatural influence on the protagonist more obvious. Because right now, it seems like it suddenly breaks his character, his reaction at the end. He becomes a very different person. And the writing just doesn't provide enough support to make me buy that. But in the context of the story as a whole, it's actually a relatively minor complaint. This is the best-written story of the competition that I've so far read, so may very well be my favorite of Round 1. The worldbuilding and the writing are just absolutely spot-on. Only the end threw me off a bit. Re-read it yourself and maybe you'll see what I see here. Remember your audience doesn't know your intentions and your parallels as well as you do. You may have to do a bit of what feels to you like spoonfeeding, but it's necessary to keep the reader following the strange transitions like that one. *** Silver“The Lords Mechanica would be more than accepting to have you in their ranks, my boy,” Lord An’s voice was kindly and soft – I wished the visor screens did not block our sight. I just bowed my head, only slightly, in response. Until this point, things were rather hard to follow. A bit of an in media res start that wasn't too welcoming to a new reader, but a little bit of quality character interaction helps. So it's about at this point that I'm beginning to realize that I -can't picture any of this-. I haven't been given a strong visual description of the characters, their armor, the environment, the ship, the sky, the city... any of it. And without a mental image, it's difficult to follow any story, but add to it no small number of references to things entirely unexplained and without context... and I'm really struggling to follow you so far. What I can fully appreciate is not poorly written, but I can only really appreciate about every other sentence. The rest don't actually convey information to me -- they leave me less certain rather than more. Ultimately, remember, the point of every word is to convey information to the reader. Remember that I know -nothing- of your setting. So we've got a fair amount of screaming and crying and just about nothing in the way of emotions. No descriptions of feelings, nothing visceral, nothing that conveys any impact to the reader. The sentences about death are written in an identical style to the sentences about the composition of sand. The names have become complications. I don't remember who all of these characters are as they were never really introduced, and the result is that I start to lose interest. Especially when they're listed in order, as they are twice in a row in this paragraph and the following one, with descriptions of their locations and weaponry.... if I don't know about them, why ought I really care about such small details? I'm overwhelmed by the non-English here, man. I haven't even got a solid visual sense of these things to support the absence of a linguistic understanding. My instinct was truly, "God, not again," here. I feel like this critique is coming out fairly harsh, but I truly want to emphasize the difficulty I'm having keeping up with your story here. It's action-heavy, and action actually depends quite a lot on the reader's understanding. Far more than slower-paced, calmer stories do. To smoothly read an action scene, I need to be able to picture all of the characters, all of their weapons, the environment they're in, their enemies, and ideally, I'll then be able to comprehend what they're feeling and thinking and follow the flow of the story. You just didn't establish a strong enough linguistic or visual foundation to write an action story, and the fact that the language you chosen was nearly entirely composed of 2-4 letter deeply foreign words... just really makes it all the worse. Let me put it another way. This story would be a perfectly successful Round 4 story, probably. But it basically falls at the starting gate as a Round 1 story. It just doesn't at all do the thing it absolutely has to do, and that's introduce me to the setting. It drops me into it and expects me to follow an action story when I can't even comprehend it. Take your time in Round 2. Be deliberate. Introduce one character at a time. When you mention an organization or group or force or weapon that has a non-English name, -explain it-. Tell me what you're talking about. Tell me why it's relevant to the story. Tell me why it matters. Otherwise it essentially reads like: "The Zoops of Bargle? I held my suptrup and opened the silver box atop the Shilsto. It was clearly Zoop. I walked across the plains, my feet cushioned by suptrup bellos and called to Sim, Dell, and Shalt. Shalt held the Bargle and I called back with the Shilsto." You can kind of try to put the pieces together, but it's such -work- for what reward? Take a look at the beginning of Jor's story or Ink's story. They -make you want to keep reading-. The reader doesn't have to put in the work. On the contrary, they bait you in. They entice you. They make you want more. Aim for that. Jor 1 - 0 Silver
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2015 18:37:43 GMT -5
Thanks for the review, Pete!
Totally in agreement about the ending after re-reading. In my mind I had the idea that perhaps this stone-cold killer had a soft spot for children, and so when he realized who had been thinking about murdering over and over was a child, he felt guilty. That's what I was going for, but rereading it now, I can see that I didn't achieve it. I should have sprinkled some internal dialogue in there about it. I did consider that, but then I didn't want the reader to see too quickly where it was going.
Either way, thanks!
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